Download LITERATURE AND ADVERTISING

Advertising and Literature
Asist. Luminiţa MUŞAT
Universitatea ,,Dunărea de Jos”Galaţi
The present paper tackles two of the types of discourses more pervading our everyday life:
advertising and literature. Given their past and tradition one may argue that they cannot be
compared and similarities found, as art and marketing do not have anything in common. But as
advertising today aspires towards a blending between artistic means and consumerist purposes, a
series of correspondences between the two may be found. According to the level at which they are
manifest these are grouped around the notions of reception and form.
The comparison between advertising and literature may seem a little far-fetched to some.
The two types of discourse seem to be as different as possible, from all points of view. The literary
one with a long and resonant past, so spoiled by the critics, linguists and at the core of some very
profound cultures contrasted to the other, new and nonconformist, manufactured only with the
purpose of alluring the consumer towards the merchandise. Because the advertising discourse has
acquired something like a mercenary fame due to its creation in response to the clients’ wellcompensated requests. However, advertisements are beginning to attract more and more fans who
appreciate their creative and imaginative power, overlooking their original purpose. Therefore, even
if advertisements are not likely to replace literature in the near future, they are clearly establishing
themselves as an autonomous artistic form. A rather visible proof in favour of this statement is the
increasing attention paid to them lately. Nowadays publicity festival are beginning to be more
frequent -- among which Adeaters is probably the best-known, there are TV shows dedicated
entirely to the latest commercials and the general public seems to be ever more drawn into this
issue.
The discourse of advertising as a complex type of discourse.
Defining the type of discourse that advertising brings forward is an extremely demanding task. The
easier approach would be an attempt to discover what this discourse is not. However, this prospect
does not seem to enlighten the researcher either. The phenomenon occurs because of the manifest
wealth of means that it makes use of. Indeed, it is deemed as a parasite discourse, in the sense that it
either is attached to other discourses or employs features that characterise these. For instance, the
classic place of an ad is between the pages of a magazine or a newspaper, while most of the times a
commercial belongs in a TV programme, be it movie or news. At the same time, advertisements
may resemble literature in point of figures of speech, letters in point of structure, live conversations
in point of dynamism, etc.
However, the issue of combining discourses need not be a negative feature. It certainly is not
something new, as the technique of bricolage has already been used in a number of modernist
works. The most convincing example is Joyce’s Ulysses which consists of a number of interwoven
styles – romance, catechism, newspaper. Therefore, the originality does not come from the single,
linear type of discourse (as deemed by the Romantics), but from the skilful blending of different
ones in order to convey the desired idea. Complexity seems to be far more rewarding at the level of
originality than plain, simple linearity.
In spite of all this plea for the close-to-literature value of advertising, the category of those who
simply despise it, considering it useless and too compelling, is rather overwhelming. This is because
they fail to acknowledge the aesthetic and original features of most of the advertisements. They
focus on the idea that ads are created in order to inculcate the buyers, who, then, do not have other
choice but to act as programmed in order to obtain the status, qualities, perspectives promised by it.
Which, obviously is not true. In a consumerist society, it is not the products’ fascinating potential
that sells them, but the potential of their copywriters to fascinate. Thus ads’ persuasive capacity
should not be blamed for that which everyone tries to accomplish day by day: complying with one
of the language functions, the persuasive one. Still, there is a number of ads which do not try to
convince the audience or the readers to purchase something, but to perform some action. More and
more publicity is generated around current issues such as domestic violence, drinking while driving
or drugs, supporting campaigns against these destructive and insidious habits. Strangely enough, it
is also involved in less crucial problems, such as urging the general public to consume milk or
iodine salt. Therefore, it appears that the widely criticised advertising methods are not employed
only with the purpose to make the people spend their money, but the same tactics have more
humanitarian goals, which are to be taken into consideration in constructing the whole picture.
Instead, the discourse of advertising should be praised for all the work that lies behind it,
particularly the creative efforts of the copywriters who strive for originality which result into the
most amazing and unexpected outcomes. Even if not supporter of this type of manifestations, one
cannot wonder or smile when watching some of the commercials released on TV – which for an
obvious reason, motion, seem more interesting than the ads in newspapers and magazines.
Moreover, it has been suggested that advertisements shape our vision of the world as well as our
culture. It may be said that not always in a positive sense, but their contribution to our cultural
background is beyond denial. And definitely the discourse behind it is worth studying.
Similarities between Literature and Advertising.
Some contiguity between literature and advertising has already been mentioned. However, it is
more features that they share. These have been grouped around two main themes: form and
reception. These issues attempt to cover all the main elements that govern the two types of
discourse. They are disposed in the increasing order of their magnitude.
Similarities in point of reception.
As it has been pointed out, the level of reception is the less represented one when it comes to the
similarities between literature and advertising. In fact, here are the most visible differences between
the two, which, in their turn, induce other contrasts. It has already been mentioned that advertising
is not even close to getting the admiration and esteem that literature enjoys. This is mainly because
the discourse of advertising is meant to serve a consumerist purpose, unlike literature that is
unselfishly created for the pure pleasure of the reader.
However, what is frequently left out, is the fact that there also exists a different type of publicity
that is not meant to sell something or to campaign for somebody. These are the advertisements with
a moral value that, more often than not, try to educate people, to promote good habits or prevent
misfortunes. They are generally sponsored by governments or other institutions interested in
encouraging people to live more healthily, more peacefully or simply live longer. The message gets
across in a simpler way than in the case of literature. One does not have to read an entire novel or to
decipher an entire poem in order to understand the importance of a balanced diet or of the car belt.
A simple but very relevant story, accompanied by a touching slogan, is enough for getting the
message across. Surely no war description in a novel, no matter how realistic and moving, sprinkled
with strong imagery and tough words, can measure up to the effect created by an unanticipated
advertisement. It starts peacefully, with the well-known song Jingle bells which creates the
traditional Christmas atmosphere, while on the sky Santa Claus’ sledge is visible on the sky.
Unexpectedly this relaxing ambience is disturbed by a missile that destroys the character, the sledge
and the whole tranquillity vanishes. The slogan says Sorry, there is no peace on Earth. In 56
countries there is war. German Red Cross. The effect is shocking enough for those who hear about
war only on the 8 o’clock news. Even if impressed, the far-away reality allows us to be detached
and not very involved. But the message of this advertisement is that warfare may affect everybody,
even if it seems less likely. It may intrude into our peaceful, quiet lives and destroy for good those
that we care for and the things we love. The slogan, in the form of an apology, is actually a
reminder that one should do whatever s/he can in order to help those in need and should not take for
granted the peace that s/he enjoys for the time being.
A less striking campaign was that promoting the nutritive value of milk. It consists of a series of
personalities, belonging to various fields (the tennis player Vanessa Williams among them), who
display “gorgeous” milk moustaches. The message is simply Got milk? The same as above, it is
more difficult to imagine that children could be influenced into obeying their parents and drinking
milk by some story in which the main character drinks milk and consequently defeats the villain
(even if it worked with the spinach!). But seeing one of their idols asking the elliptical question Got
milk? is much more appealing to their imagination and presumably much more compelling.
On the other hand, it is said that the literature of a given epoch may influence that period by setting
some standards in people’s behaviour. The same is true nowadays for advertising. A very good
example is the commercial for the Miller beer that consists of a series of young men greeting each
other using the words What’s uuuuuuuup? Trying to establish a common point between the Miller
consumers i.e. that they are of a certain age, cool and modern, the ad actually set a trend among the
youth who really began to use the greeting extensively. Like all the advertisements that have a huge
impact on the general public, this one, too, inspired in its turn others that have their origins in it or
that simply mock it (as a recent phenomenon in advertising industry seems to be bantering the work
of the competition).
At the same time, it is obvious that all the contemporary, trendy issues are to be found in ads. These
include choice of words, attitudes or behaviours that are landmarks of the period in which they are
produced and of the culture in which they are released. That is why, more often than not,
international brands try to adapt their publicity to the target cultures in order to avoid various
marketing errors that have been made until now. For example, the copy-writers should be aware
that an ad for the Humana Nursing Homes would disconcert that Japanese consumers as it is
offending for them to let their old in the nursing homes.
An instance of socially representative advertisement is the one for Olay Total Effects that has
written in capital letters: Workaholic and in small print also the explanation Working round the
clock to help you look younger, Olay’s Total Effects is the No. 1 moisturiser to fight 7 seven signs of
ageing. Practically, the term workaholic is beginning to be increasingly characteristic for the
American society. More and more people lead their lives around their professional activities,
working round the clock. The difference here is the motivation. While people toil for power, money
or personal satisfaction, the advertised product directs its efforts towards the consumer in order to
construct a better image for her, usually. What the ad is trying to create is a connection between
some people’s way of life and the supposed action means of the product. It is more likely that a
consumer should be attracted towards a product whose slogan seems to concentrate her own life
than any other type of product belonging to the same category.
Therefore it is clear that the same type of interaction occurs between the general public and
literature and the same general public and advertisements. The difference is that in the latter case
the effects and the response appear to be accelerated due to the avalanche of publicity material
compared to the amount of literature that one reads nowadays. As the common tendency is towards
the small and large screen, the print seems to lose its significance in a widely electronic society. All
that is left is the magazines and newspapers that are, again, abundant in advertising material, as
people have rather lost interest in fiction and are more interested in that which takes place in real
world, around them. Consequently, it may be said that the advertising effects are more visible than
those of some contemporary writers who is, however, doomed to being valued after his death.
Similarities in point of form.
The best represented of the common features of the two types of discourses is the use of rhetorical
figures. Obviously, the motivations behind it are so dissimilar, as the language functions they
approach are distinct: in literature, the poetic function generally dictates the choices an author
makes whereas in advertising, it is the persuasive function that rules. Furthermore, the former is
meant to move expressing the author’s feelings, unlike the latter, which is meant to move the buyer
to the supermarket, expressing only one feeling, that of the manufacturer: that people should rush to
the selling points and do their duty! Evidently, this is a simplistic way of putting the whole matter,
as so many variables are not taken into account, such as the above mentioned detail, that not all
advertisements are meant to sell or that not everything can be bought, even if the issue of money
usually pops out (sometimes is about renting or acquiring some service).
Nevertheless, what most of the ads have in common is their purpose to persuade and this cannot be
done without the suitable amount of means, among which rhetorical figures are included. It is
known that the same thing can be expressed in a number of ways among which the most appropriate
should be selected in order to reach the overriding goal, i.e. the persuasion of the consumer. Given
the large amount of speech figures to be found in advertising, one might assume that these are of
help. And this would be true, according to the latest studies. The rationale for this is that the
deviation represented by the stylistic device is one of the factors that draws attention, as no
consumer is under the compulsion of starting or finishing reading a headline. Therefore, as the
figurative language is far more demanding than the non-figurative one, in order to decode its
meaning, like a puzzle, it also attracts those amateurs of easy-to-solve crosswords. Actually, it is
one of the processes that makes literature interesting too. This leads to what R. Barthes calls “the
pleasure of the text”1, the reward coming from processing a clever arrangement of words. At the
same time the success in deciphering that which appear to be encrypted may be considered a little
flattering for the consumer who takes pride in comprehending the underlying idea of the ad.
The strange phenomenon is that the copywriters, striving to always bring something new and
surprising, have at times the tendency to exaggerate. This is the case of some of the ads that are
puzzling and require more time and effort than usual to process. On the other hand, at the end, the
compensation is so much bigger. But the fact is strange because one of the rule of the rhetoric is that
the stylistic device should be easy enough to resolve, yet not too blatant. Therefore the consumer
should not be put too much strain. But, as ad producing becomes more and more an industry and a
business, the people controlling it have to prove to be inventive and innovative, as in any industry.
Another argument in favour of the figurative ad language is that it proves to be more memorable,
fact of outmost importance. Copywriters figure out that, if a consumer remembers the slogan of the
product, he will automatically keep in mind the product too, a process that is normal and
understandable2.
As a consequence of the above mentioned factors, Leigh3 found rhetorical figures in three fourths of
the magazine ads he studied. This can be noticed even without the statistics, as the annoyance
aroused by a boring TV commercial or the dismissal of the dull magazine ads is the common
reaction among many of us. On the other hand, not all the rhetorical figures are as popular, some
being more effective than others in some respect. Those which prevail most are pun, epithet,
alliteration, repetition, parallelism and, of course, metaphor. This is as it should be because, if
metaphor governs the literary discourse, it comes only natural as a key figure in the advertising
discourse, too. After all, this is one of the features that the two types of texts have in common.
Barhes, R. “The Old Rhetoric: An Aide-Memoire” in The Semiotic Challenge, Hill and Wang, New York, 1988, p. 59
Leigh, J.L., The Use of Figures of Speech in Print Ad Headlines, Journal of Advertising, 23 (June), 1994, p.16
3
Ibid. p. 17
1
2
Therefore metaphor is extensively pervading the advertising space, be it printed or screened. The
following advertisement for the Ahava Dead Sea Bath Salts uses a series of metaphors belonging
both to the concrete and abstract field, starting with the name of the product: Mind Melt.
The Ahava Mind Melt contains 100% Dead Sea salt blended with pure essential oils. Soak your
cares away with Cedarwood, uplifting Calry Sage, and balancing Vetiver. Let the Dead Sea’s
unique mineral mix melt your muscles while the harmonious blend of essentials replenishes your
soul.
All the metaphors in the advertisement concern the effects of the product. They may be mapped as:
MIND IS METAL
CARES ARE OBJECTS
MUSCLES ARE METAL
SOUL IS CONTAINER
Even if the ad almost resembles a poem, it is hardly realistic. Of the four metaphoric structures
identified, only one regards the genuine effect of the bath salts: that of relaxing the body. Those
related to the mind, cares and soul are rather farfetched. What they imply that by using the product,
not only the physical part will unwind, but the person will also find the strength to get away from
the cares, to free the mind and find the peace of the soul. The choice of metaphors is interesting,
particularly the same mapping for the mind and the muscles. This contributes to the general
atmosphere of relaxation that the product is supposed to induce. It is also worth mentioning that all
the choices of metaphorical vehicles are connected to liquids: metals are melted into liquids, a
liquid is needed to soak something and, finally a container is replenished with a liquid. Therefore
the words have not been selected at random, but in order to create the feeling of “moist relaxation”,
both mental and physical.
Nevertheless, metaphor is not the representative rhetorical figure for the discourse of advertising.
Pun is by far the best represented. This may be due to the jocular attitude that ads adopt towards the
products and the reality in general, which has the function of releasing the tension in the consumer.
Puns are also meant as a kind of riddle that the consumer is more than willing to decipher. A case in
point is the commercial for paper clips that has as a slogan the play upon words Video clips. The
commercial displays a series of clips dancing, without any other information added. The effect is
humorous and is based on the polysemy of the word clip that has both the meaning of any of
various wire or metal devices used for holding things together and of short extract from a film. The
conception of the commercial makes use of both senses in placing “the characters”, the clips, in a
music/film environment.
There is a wide range of rhetorical figures represented in advertisements. They belong either to the
semantic/conceptual field, as those mentioned above or to the form one. For instance, alliteration
may also occur as in the ad for the Bourjois powder eye that states Dip & dust, thrills without spills.
The recurrence of the /d/ and /ils/ sounds gives a certain sonority to the slogan, making it sound
rather like a spell. It is actually based on the phonological patterns of the incantations that make use
of such means. The effect should be a “charming” one, meaning that using the cosmetic product in
question should have the efficacy of a spell. The mental pattern that lies at its core is the neverending endeavor of women for men’s attention, one of the most frequent psychological triggers
employed by the advertisers.
Another ad that employs a wealth of stylistic devices is the one for Pantene ProV, Damaged by
winter, rescued by Pantene ProV. In this case there is a blending between the semantic devices and
formal ones. From the latter category, the personification of the product may be identified. The
shampoo is attributed the characteristics of a life saver, something like a super hero that is deemed
to succeed even in the most hopeless situations. The inference to be made is that with Pantene ProV
the customer’s hair is as protected and nourished as possible.
Another semantic device is the antithetic relationship between the two pair of terms
damaged/rescued and winter/Pantene ProV. The former is obvious and creates the foundation for
the latter that is not a conventional one. Thus an opposition between the “positive character” i.e. the
shampoo, and the “negative character” i.e. winter, is created. What is suggested by it is that the
“malefic” winter effects vanish when confronted with the strong vigor of the product.
As far as the formal level is concerned, the above mentioned semantic devices are reinforced by the
grammatical parallelism. The structure [verb in the Past Participle]+[preposition]+[agent] confers
balance to the slogan, justifying, at the same time, the semantic association between the terms. In
order to fulfill one of the basic requirements of slogans i.e. brevity, the subject hair and the
auxiliary to be are omitted. Thus what is left is the quintessence of the advertisement concept, as the
rest could be retrieved from the context.
The number of stylistic devices employed in advertisements is, nevertheless, impressive. It may be
said that their density is even greater than in literary texts, due to the fact advertising employs short
chunks that in which the figures of speech overflow. In addition, the interweaving between
language and at least image, if not sound and motion as well, has to be taken into account. At the
level of image, a new generation of rhetorical figures are apparent i.e. the pictorial ones. Almost
each and every traditional category has its pictorial counterpart, represented by an iconic
representation of the cognitive or formal structure that underlies behind the stylistic device.
Conclusions.
The relationship between literature and advertising is obvious, particularly in point of creativity.
Both deal with language at an advanced level and even if image becomes more and more important
in the latter, words shall never lose their power. On the contrary, image and language reinforce each
other in order to render the ideas of the copywriters as clear as possible. The outcome lies at the
boundary between art and business as the advertisers have realised the intricate connection between
the image of a product and its desirability.
The function of advertisements has diversified as well. They do not always attempt to impose the
product, but they perform other functions too. Leaving aside those ads with a social or educational
message, there are those which try in setting a trend. The phenomenon is reversed: instead of
creating a product addressed to an existing category of people, the ad tries to present an image with
which the consumers would fancy to identify themselves. More often than not, that image is the one
that also requires the presence of the product, but good values are also promoted. In this respect
literature has a less obvious educational purpose, playing with the feelings of the readers rather than
with their minds.
To conclude, the similarities between advertising and literature are not as many as the
dissimilarities between them. But, nonetheless, they exist. An extensive contrastive study of the two
types of texts should also include narratology and poetry elements as well as an inquiry on their
mimetic tendencies concerning other types of discourses, be it written or spoken.
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